Public Service Announcements

evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
edited March 2015 in Admin Communications
This discussion was created from comments split from: The Forum Feedback Thread.
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  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    Did you know? You can customize your forum profile by going here and clicking "Edit My Account." Currently it's possible to specify: Real Name, Age, Occupation, Location, Club(s), Past Swims, Training For, Website, and Twitter.

    You can choose to fill out as much or as little information as you like - but of course, more information promotes a richer forum experience for all members.

    Any suggestions for additional profile fields? What else would be interesting to know about each other? Best time in the 50 Freestyle? ;)
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    Important Note: I adjusted the privacy settings so non-members of the forum cannot view member profile information. You must be logged in to see profile info. Guests/non-members can still view discussions and comments, but not "activity" and profile info.
  • loneswimmerloneswimmer IrelandCharter Member
    I would like to tell people who may be unfamiliar with forum software, that they have the ability to directly send a PM, Personal Message to other users if you want to discuss or ask something privatly.

    All you have to do is click on the recipients profile picture or name and the option will be displayed in a short menu.

    loneswimmer.com

  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    Just added Liking functionality for individual comments.

    If you like a comment that someone makes, find the word "Like" above the comment (next to Quote/Edit/Delete/Flag), and click it. If you are a Facebook user, this will be familiar technology.

    If you "like" being able to "like" stuff, let us know. If you don't like it, let us know too! :)
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    Added some simple Forum Statistics, which appear at the bottom of each page. Check out our newest members!
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    Out of respect to the technophobes out there (Barra, I'm looking at you), the Forum now supports BBCode for comment formatting, rather than HTML as used previously. BBCode is simpler and commonly used in other forums.

    For documentation, click the "BBCode" link below any comment box, or simply use the buttons above the box to insert code.
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    By popular demand, the Forum is now offering the option of an Email Digest Subscription - either daily or weekly. The previous email subscription service didn't work well - it notified only of new threads (not new comments), and was getting caught in spam filters.

    The new email service is powered by Mailchimp and should work much better. It sends one email per day (or week - your choice), containing all the new posts from that day (or week). It's pretty slick - here's a preview.

    To subscribe to the Daily digest, go here:
    http://eepurl.com/kPqKf

    To subscribe to the Weekly digest, go here:
    http://eepurl.com/kPscn

    We hope this will be useful for people.

    The Forum privacy policy remains the same: We won't share your email address with anyone, for any reason. For the Mailchimp privacy policy (which is highly regarded), see here.
  • loneswimmerloneswimmer IrelandCharter Member
    Ongoing, Evan will continue to be Main Chimp doing most of the Admin heavy lifting around here.

    loneswimmer.com

  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited May 2012
    Just added a new discussion category, Locations & Networking. If you have a question along the lines of:

    - "I'm traveling to Lagos, Nigeria to meet a guy who wants to give me a million dollars. Any good places to swim OW there?"
    - "I just moved to Brighton Beach in NYC. Are there any OW groups around here, by any chance?"
    - "I want to swim down the River Moskva, and am wondering where I can get permits or who I need to bribe? Anyone have an in with Putin?"

    ...then it probably belongs in this category.

    Also, a few old threads have been re-categorized.
  • jcmalickjcmalick Wilmington, DEMember
    Evan:

    -Swim in Lagos Lagoon! Bring the millionaire along on the boat with the money, push him off, and strand him with an empty gas tank, no oars, and swim for shore! Could make for a million dollar marathon swim!
    -CIBBOWS and Coney Island Polar Bears...duh!!!
    -I bet Big River Man Martin could help you with the Moscow River Swim!

    lol :o)
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited May 2012
    The forum search engine (top right corner of the main discussions page) is now powered by Google. This should provide much more relevant results than the forum software's default MySQL search.

    Try it, you'll like it!
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited May 2012
    Hi everyone,

    I thought I'd take this opportunity for a couple reminders about basic internet forum etiquette.

    * New topic = New thread

    Please try to stay within the general confines of the thread topic. If you have an unrelated question or comment, it's usually better to start a new thread. Off-topic posts make threads less readable after the fact, and can be frustrating to current participants.

    We realize sometimes this happens inadvertently - e.g., one person makes an offhand comment within a properly on-topic post, and then the next person responds to the offhand comment. In such cases, the moderators may choose to "split" the discussion into a separate thread. Nobody's fault - sometimes it just happens.

    * Please limit signatures to three lines.

    Signatures might include your name and a link to your website, but really not much more than that. Additional information belongs in your profile.

    Overly-long signatures take up valuable screen real estate and can make the forum frustrating to read. If you have a signature longer than three lines, please shorten it.

    Thanks!

    (These guidelines have been added to the FAQ thread.)
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    Today the Marathon Swimmers Forum passed 400 registered, confirmed members. Here's to 5 1/2 months of great community, discussion, and camaraderie among some of the world's foremost endurance athletes! Well done, everyone.
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    evmo wrote:
    ...among some of the world's foremost endurance athletes
    EDIT: And those who are training to become one, and those who just find it interesting for whatever reason. We value all of you!
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    Forum members: due to a spam attack I had to restore a previously backed-up site database. As a result, any posts from the past 24 hours or so are gone. Apologies for the inconvenience. If one of your posts was deleted, please feel free to re-post.
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    The FileUpload feature on the forum has been disabled, due to security concerns. Going forward, to include images in your comments, please use an image-sharing service such as imgur or Dropbox.

    i.e., upload image from your computer to imgur.com, get image URL, link to this URL in your comment.

    The FAQ has been updated.
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    Thanks to @loneswimmer for the new banner image! Very nice.
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    Apologies to any members who may have received a spammy personal message recently through the forum. The spammer has been deleted.
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    Apologies to all for the extended downtime this afternoon, approx. 10:30am - 2:30pm Pacific time. Our hosting company was having server issues.
  • loneswimmerloneswimmer IrelandCharter Member
    @Evmo retitled & rewrote the FAQ as New Member Guide.

    loneswimmer.com

  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited August 2015
    Public Service Announcement of the day:

    If you receive email notifications of Forum private messages, you cannot "reply via email." Your message will go to an unmonitored inbox. You must reply via your forum inbox.

    This has been added to the Forum Member Guide.
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited April 2016
    In the ongoing effort to make this website a more useful, vibrant community for the world's marathon swimmers, I've added a new box in the right sidebar of the main Discussions page.

    The new box is labeled Marathon Swimmers Blog Posts.

    It displays a snippet of the most recent blog posts from a collection of (as of right now) 44 different marathon swimming blogs.

    You can see which specific blogs are in this collection HERE. If you would like to add your own blog to this collection, please send me a request (preferably including your RSS feed URL) via private message.

    Any feedback on this new feature is welcome - positive or negative. Let me know what you think.
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited March 2013
    Previously, if you wanted to subscribe to notifications of new forum posts, you had two options: RSS and Email Digest.

    I've now added a third option: Twitter. The alias MSForumFeed will tweet whenever there is a new post to the forum.

    http://www.twitter.com/MSForumFeed

    NOTE: This new Twitter account is separate from our existing MarathonSwimrs account, which is the official mouthpiece of the Forum, with less frequent updates.
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited April 2013
    Private Messages vs. Public Messages

    Similar to Facebook, on this forum you have the ability to send other forum members either private messages or public messages. It is important to understand the difference between these two types of messages. I think sometimes people send a public message when they think they are sending a private message.

    Private messages (PMs) are the ones that are in your Inbox. There is a link to your Inbox in the top menu.

    There are two ways to send forum members a private message:

    (1) Go to your Inbox. Click "Start a New Conversation." Type the username of the person you want to send a message. Write your message. Click send.

    (2) Go to the Profile of the person you want to send a message. Look at the menu on the left side of the profile page. Click "Send [username] a message." Write your message. Click send.

    Public messages appear on forum members' profile pages, and on the Activity page. They are visible to all forum members (but not visible to non-members). Public messages are equivalent to writing on someone's Timeline or Wall on Facebook.

    To send another forum member a public message, go to their Profile. Write a message in the box that appears near the top. Click "Add comment." Please remember, these messages are visible to all forum members.

    Questions?
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited July 2013
    The Forum has a new Facebook page. There will be unique content, not just cross-postings of Forum threads. If you're a Facebook user, we warmly invite you to 'Like' us :)

    https://www.facebook.com/marathonswimmers
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited December 2016
    Apologies for the extended downtime this morning (PDT). Massive outage at our hosting company. Looks like we're back online now.
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    MSF's web host is upgrading their servers this evening. As a result, all MSF sites will be down for approx 15-30 minutes, sometime between 7pm and 1am Pacific time, tonight.

    Do not panic.
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited August 2015

    It's been a while since we've bumped the MSF Facebook page:

    https://www.facebook.com/marathonswimmers

    Be sure to 'like' us for the latest happenings in the marathon swimming world, delivered directly to your facebook timeline! :)

    Oh, and we are also on Twitter:

    http://twitter.com/marathon_swimrs

  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited December 2016

    And... we're back.

    I apologize for the extended outage. The hosting company we use for this site experienced a presumed denial-of-service attack from approx. 1pm to 7pm Pacific time. So, a widespread network outage, not specific to MSF.

    No word yet on whether fans of Ben Hooper ( @AnthonyMcCarley's idea), or perhaps Putin trying to hack the MSF Awards ( @malinaka's idea), are responsible.

    IronMikeDanSimonelliFlowSwimmersloneswimmerAnthonyMcCarleyrlmbluemermaid9malinakaCathyInCA
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited January 2019

    I just completed several long-needed back-end upgrades on the Forum. They should not much affect the regular user's experience of the Forum, so this is just an FYI:

    • The Forum is now https compliant. Anything you type into the Forum is now encrypted, and you should no longer see the annoying "Not Secure" warning in your browser's address bar.
    • The Forum's address is now forum.marathonswimmers.org instead of marathonswimmers.org/forum (i.e., subdomain instead of subdirectory). Any clicks or attempts to browse to old-style sub-directory URLs should automatically redirect to the new subdomain (so you don't even need to update your bookmarks, if you don't want!).
    • Behind the scenes, the Forum has been moved to a new server running more modern versions of the underlying software. You may notice that browsing the Forum seems a bit "snappier" and faster loading - and it is.

    There probably will be a few more kinks to resolve in the next few days, but let me know if you notice anything really wonky.

    Known Issues

    • "Like button" - temporarily disabled while I resolve some version compatibility issues.
    CathyInCAthelittlemerwookieBridgetJaimieflystorms
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin

    The "like" button is back! (I think)

    Just finished one last upgrade, to the latest version of the forum software. Please PM me with any bug reports. Thanks.

    CathyInCABogdanZj9swimCopelj26JustSwimthelittlemerwookieMoCocurlyKatieBunMLambyJaimieStLucia_ChannelrlmArgent
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited January 2019

    Getting some reports of people's passwords not working after the recent software upgrade.

    If this happens to you, please reset it via this link: https://forum.marathonswimmers.org/entry/passwordrequest

    Or click "Forgot?" on the Sign In page.

    Sorry for the hassle.

    IronMikeKatieBunJaimieAlex_Arevalo
  • miklcctmiklcct London, United KingdomMem​ber

    Is it possible to change the like to unlike after I liked it, to prevent accidentally unliking a post?

  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin

    It's an issue of priorities, and this one is really, really low.

    Copelj26
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